5th
Feb: sooo dark and very early.
saw amazing stars the night before last when we were getting into the car after
flight. so these really early wake-ups are all about coffee, incense, and a
candle. one old simple rocker. this journal. the heater blazing. and about
quiet. total and utter solitude, and quiet.
8th
Feb: three yards from a heron,
watching. frozen still. enjoying. ever so slowly inching forward. but no need
to crowd him or us. apparently he’s this year's baby and not as timid as the
others – so one local said. people behind me on the pier respected my enjoyment
of the heron by not venturing forward – too close to scare him off. i was so
enraptured with his long, blowing feathers, piercing eye, and impossibly-long
bill that i nearly forgot to check the sunset colors.
i looked
up and saw the entire cascades range bathed in the sweetest blanket of pink:
thick, soft, totally-enveloping. and then a rainbow appeared – wide and
striking – right through the pink thick color – up through it – and down into
it. almost a pink rainbow. the water stretched out below me and out of the edge
of land seemed to grow that rainbow…the reflection out into the water
unmistakably “waterbow.”
10th
Feb: two mornings in a row of
utterly beautiful sunrises. yesterday’s featured copper – liquid, luminescent.
today’s was the florescent red with deep pinks, coral, the most gorgeous
off-white, and strands of gold. calm exhilaration. soothing. the joy of living
in a place like this continues to consume me.
It doesn’t take fancy words or complex concepts to convey a
relationship with something larger than ourselves. It certainly doesn’t require
capitalization, proper spelling, conformity to grammar and mechanics.
Nature doesn’t ask us to write out long tomes or verifiable
fact; nor does Abidance require us to spend forty-two hours in order to meticulously
craft our notion of written perfection about nature’s miracles.
These hastily-scribbled, barely-legible snippets from my actual
journal are about nothing other than paying attention. Being open. And cherishing
the subtle shifts of light and shadow, breeze, boughs, beak.
All blog images created & photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2016 JenniferJWilhoit/TEALarbor stories. AllRightsReserved."
